Makau Mutua: Kenya’s circular firing squad
China has been the preferred lender because the kickbacks are guaranteed.File | Nation Media Group
What you need to know:
- History doesn’t have a shortage of societies that cannibalise themselves as well as others
- The twin pandemics of corruption and Covid-19 have sunk Kenya into a pit latrine.
Today, I write about Kenya’s circular firing squad. The term refers to a group of folks engaged in self-destructive internal – internecine – conflicts and mutual recriminations. It’s both a suicidal and homicidal impulse that’s dystopian.
Maggots do it to each other all the time. It doesn’t matter whether you explain the phenomenon times without number to those involved. It’s addictive and soon becomes a way of life from which there’s virtually no escape. Children born in such a moral and political culture know nothing better.
That’s why the society sinks deeper into the abyss. In Kenya, this disease afflicts the elites and the hoi polloi alike. Bloodlust – an uncontrollable desire to destroy each other – has infected our bone marrow.
History doesn’t have a shortage of societies that cannibalise themselves as well as others. Europeans have often killed each other and outsiders with shocking enthusiasm. The sword is turned inwards as often as it’s turned outwards.
We cannot forget the descent into hell under Adolf Hitler, or the raging inferno that consumed hundreds of thousands as Yugoslavia collapsed. In Africa, the psychopathy of the post-colonial state has led many countries to a “Lord of the Flies” moment.
Collapsed societies
Closer to Kenya, Somalia has been the poster child for abject catastrophe since the overthrow of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. We know it’s near impossible to snatch collapsed societies such as Somalia back. Warning – Kenya is flirting with Somalia’s godforsaken fate.
In life, you lie on the bed that you’ve made for yourself. You cannot lie in the bed of others. Look at South Sudan. That pitiable country can’t seem to do anything right. I know – you are going to remind me of its cruel colonial history and utter degradation when it was part of Sudan.
No argument there. However, the excuses must stop somewhere. Look at the country’s two key protagonist buffoons. On the one hand is President Salva Kiir, the clownish-looking, hat-wearing cowboy Dinka. On the other is warlord Riek Machar, the egotistical gap-toothed Nuer.
Both sleep with one eye open for deathly fear of each other. They’ve made sure South Sudan remains in the Stone Age.
Kenyans shouldn’t snicker because the fates of Somalia and South Sudan could be ours sooner than we think. Our “Lord of the Flies” moment may not be too far.
Freaking alarm bell
Why do I make this dire prediction? I do so because it’s time someone rang the freaking alarm bell. Let’s start with debt. Since 2013, when Jubilee took power, the country has binged on one unconscionable loan after another.
China has been the preferred lender because the kickbacks are guaranteed. What’s more treasonous is the brazen theft – in broad daylight – of those loans. We have nothing to show for it, and whatever we have are useless white elephants. The state has been unable, and unwilling, to convict a single thief.
The state elite, in cahoots with private cartels, even stole the Covid-19 funds together with the PPE meant to combat the pandemic. Again, not a single thieving soul has been convicted of these heists. The twin pandemics of corruption and Covid-19 have sunk Kenya into a pit latrine. The state is broke. It can’t, and won’t, pay for anything.
The Kenya shilling is fast dropping into the cellar against the US dollar. All the lights are flashing red. In the meantime, the political class is fighting about 2022. We are on the Titanic headed to the bottom of the ocean’s abyss and the political class is bickering about who will take over the ramshackle state in two years.
I am seeing something that I have never seen in our people in all my years on this earth. Life for the majority has always been hard in Kenya. But most of us retained some hope. Hope that things will get better. Hope that if we worked hard, our lot would improve.
Ethnicity
Hope that education was a way out of dirt poverty. Hope that while progress isn’t linear, it keeps moving forward. Hope that we could be one united country, knowing no ethnicity, race, region, or religion. Hope that we would be our brother’s – and sister’s – keeper. Where for so long there was hope, today I look into the eyes of my compatriots and I see despair. Defeat. Surrender.
Today, Kenyans are hungry and there’s no one to feed them. Kenyans are naked and there’s no one to clothe them. Kenyans have no shelter and there’s no one to house them. Instead, the elites have turned on each and on us. In response, we have turned on each other.
We are cannibalising each other. Brother has turned against brother, and sister against sister, often literally. We have formed a circle and are firing at each other. We are in a suicide pact where mutual destruction is assured. In a circular firing squad, there are no survivors, or victors – only losers. Who will reset the button? Will someone silence the guns?
@makaumutua
Source: Sunday Nation-Kenya
No comments:
Post a Comment